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I am very happy with your reply on my somewhat sturdy, harsh comments.In fact last night I woke up with a shameful feeling for criticizing one of the most impressive projects on this forum which is yours. I like to apologize for this. I am glad to read you take my comments serious and not as bare critics.

Indeed I have seen buildings in your pictures looking familiar to me, I recognize them from books including paintings and gravures of this battle. So your goal is high and you did almost everything to reach it and get the best out of it. Driving around Ligny and looking for old buildings is the real spirit! I whish I had done that when ten years ago I build my houses for Quatre Bras. I only used internet. And now, ten years later, lots of new pictures are available and I realise my Ferme de Gemioncourt and other buildings are far from correct.

Using the expression 'another universe' was probably not the right choice of words. In fact all of your houses are a serious approach to what those Belgian houses have looked like in 1815. What I wanted to express was the strange proportions and sizes.

My fellow gamer mr. Bos always says: in the ratio of a game, one ore two houses are as large as a whole village, since a battalion of 16 men has ratio between 1:50 or 1:100 too.I always want to build complete villages for our games, each of the houses real proportional size. But then we need massive armies to invade them. Which we have, including battalions of 50 men but that is still ratio 1:10. But with large armies (you painted 6000? That is astonishing, especially if they are all painted like the ones I have seen!) the one- or two day games do not come to an end. And my villages become so extensive, they grow together into one huge suburb and there is almost no open fields left in between the villages.

It is a problem all of us are facing and we can not solve. Or maybe we just want to much in one single project, game or diorama?

The only one solving it is our member Wolfgang with the Crobern diorama, but he is part of a team and he is not a gamer.

Great to hear from you, since you were my inspirator for many years. The subject you are asking for is not a diorama.It is a WRG game photo series depicting a multiple days Quatre Bras battle from 2005 with huge armies of 3 different Dutch painters so not too much cohesion in styling. But landscape and buildings were payed some extra attention to. If you are curious I can post some of them in the gaming section since this is Mr. Dodsons topic (and another battle)

@CM DODSON-I have an impression this diorama is huge...How exactly it is big...Can you give post please some photos of whole diorama...Reason I ask because it is really good diorama it has panoramic view and I want to build something similar some day...

Hello Emperor and thank you for your question. The sand table is approximately 4.5 metres by 2.3 metres with an extra area of 0.6 by 0.8 metres to represent the Wagnelee approaches.

This allows the primary fighting area to be represented up to Mount Pontriaux. I wanted to include Tongrenelle and Boignee but this was impractical. As these areas were primarily skirmished over in the real event I did not consider this to be a major problem.

The table has three 'pop ups' which allow access to the far side as this by necessity is against the garage wall. The wall has 'lugs' which allows sections to slide allowing access. This means lots of crawling about under the table!

It is difficult to photograph the whole area with my camera, however I will try to get some panoramic shots as I was quite pleased with the view from Mount Pontriaux church photograph.

The fighting is currently at 4.10pm and I intend to conduct a few more moves before submitting new photos as I do not want them to look too similar.

I was already wondering when the next 'Dodson' was being posted and I am truely impressed by your new work. The first overview picture in particular. It looks bigger than before. So many villages in one shot, and knowing you had no help from a team of assistant modelers.

Did you construct some new buildings? I see a barn and a house I did not notice before. Some things impress me in particular: you payed very much attention to the painted background which is covering all of your table edge in picture one. Also you become very skillfull in adding smoke/mist to your scenes. It looks like analogue smoke, not digital. But by creating smoke you must be very fast taking a picture.

Also you have a very good touch of dynamic, dramatic and very cruel scenes. I don't remember where but somewhere in this forum you explained us all about your use of Airfix American WWI figures for action- and wounded Napoleonics. I can see your point in this since these old Airfix figures were sculpted very lively and thin so are less difficult to redress yourself. Both your indoor and outdoor fightings show some of these conversions. I can not tell what is the origin of these figures. But in their sobriety (I hope this is the right word) they are strikingly dramatic and hardly ever seen before by me. Also the damage to the howitzer wheel is a good detail.

The view over Ligny village looking North East towards Wagnelee. 12th Infantry Division, Lieutenant- general Baron Marc-Nicholas Pecheux is fighting it’s way towards Ligny church, although the Ferme Den Haut is still in Prussian hands.

On the subject of cruising around looking at buildings this i cannot do,but i use Google Maps and gather info on buildings and such that way and it helps with scratch-building projects. It`s a great tool to use and one get to save petrol money too. i highly recommend using it. So let your typing finger do the work. I often cruise N Y City for free!